Which City Is the World’s Most Expensive?

iStockphoto/Thinkstock(TOKYO) — In what is perhaps a sign of the times, Tokyo has regained the crown as the world’s most expensive city to live in. The record high yen pushed costs up for foreign companies with staff in Japan, while Paris, Rome, Amsterdam, and other European cities fell in the rankings – as a weaker euro slid costs.

Half the cities in the top 10 were in Asia, including Singapore and Hong Kong.

The cheapest city was Karachi, Pakistan, where the cost of living was a third of that in Tokyo, followed by Islamabad.

In the United States, Winston-Salem, N.C., had the lowest cost of living of any major urban area in the U.S.; Chicago was ranked 110th overall and Washington, D.C., 107th.